Alexander Rose : Rise To Stardom - Chapter 33

(Same day, afternoon)

I text Chris [hey man, you want to come over to hang out]

10 minutes later

[Chris: sorry I was busy cleaning, but yeah sure I just finished can you pick me up?]

I think ‘cleaning, shouldn’t he be enjoying today?’

[yeah, just send me the Address and I’ll be there soon]

It took him a couple minutes but he sends me the address and I’m shocked and so is Cora she was sitting next to me so she saw the text as well.

[Chris: ****** St, Santa Clara Orphanage]

I feel bad for him because I understand what that’s like, I shake it off and I ask if I can take the car to pick up Chris and my mom says sure. Cora goes with me and she hasn’t said anything, We get in the car and I drive to pick him up.

(45 minutes later)

I come to a stop in front of the orphanage and I see a few kids playing tag in the front yard I text Chris that I’m here And Cora looks at me sadly. He walks out the front door while saying bye to the kids then he gets to the car and He gets in the back seat Looking slightly ashamed and embarrassed.

Chris said “thanks for inviting me, it’s only me and one other teenager here he graduates this year but we aren’t really friends so it gets boring here.”

I just smile and said “well we’re friends so there’s no need to thank me, also Jared might also come over so let’s go before he has to be there on his own.”

I don’t ask any more questions about the orphanage which he released a sigh of relief and I drive home and we talk a little on the way about soccer and school.

(Back home)

while we were on our way back, Cora texted Sara if she wanted to come over to my house she said she’ll be there. I pull up to the house and park in the driveway, right when I do 2 more cars stop in front of the house and Jared and Sara step out of the cars, Sara’s drives away but behind Jared I see Jason who drove him here.

Sara says “hey guys, feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you, I missed you best friend”

Cora smiles and says “I missed you to”

I say “you guys can go inside if you want”

Cora and Sara go inside, well more like Sara pulled Cora inside asking where the food was.

Jason says “no invite for me? One of your best friends” He puts on a sad expression.

I get a mischievous look on my face and I say “well I just assumed you would be, Very busy with Natalie” he actually got embarrassed.

Jared says “yeah, he’s almost never home anymore”

Jason walked past us and says “bunch of jerks” he heads inside.

I burst out laughing and so did Jared, Chris just smiled. Jared sees him and put an arm around Chris’s neck and pulled him along “dude you won’t believe what just happened to me recently”

Chris said “w-what?”

And they proceed to talk about the Club in England and many other things and hung out in Alexander’s room.

–

(Couple hours later)

Cora and I are sitting on my bed against the head board and she’s leaning into me, Sara is sitting on my gaming chair, Jason is sitting at my window, Jared is laying on the end of the bed looking up, Chris is sitting on the stool from my studio leaning against the wall, and Birdie and Akira are playing my games on the tv.

‘It’s pretty packed in here buts it’s fine’ I smile

Chris suddenly says “thank you” while looking at his hands

Me, Cora, Jared, Jason and Sara all look at him he looks up and sees that and he blushed and looked away.

He continued “F- for inviting me even though we’re not that close”

I smiled and said “didn’t I just say earlier you don’t need to thank me for that, believe it or not Cora and Jason were my only true friends before my accident. You, Sara, Jared and the Riley twins are now close friends, at least to me.”

Sara says “aww, your my friend to. And if you want we can be friends Chris”

Jason nods “even though I’m your coach, we could be friends I’m not some old man I’m still 21 you know”

Jared says “and I thought we’ve been friends since you joined me and Alexander after practice”

Cora says “I’d gladly be your friend Chris, your part of the group so like he said you don’t need to thank us for wanting to hang out with a friend”

We all look over and are shocked to see a tear falling to the floor, then another and another. Chris looks up with a smile and tears on his face Sara quickly goes and hugs him and so does Cora then we all join in, except for the younger 2 who are distracted by the game.

We all go back to our original spots except for Sara who continues to hug Chris and Chris who now has a bright red blush on his face. The rest of us laugh, then Sara realized what she was doing and she also blushed and she quickly went back to her spot. Chris slowly got used to the whole group and by the end of the day he was actually participating in the conversation here and there.

–

I stooped in front of the place Chris stays its just me and him he looks like he wants to say something so I jus wait for him.

He says “s-so… why haven’t you brought up or asked me anything about… you know” he gestured towards the orphanage.

I say “to be honest, I thought you wouldn’t want to talk about it. And I didn’t bring it up back there because it’s not my place to tell people about it… do you want to talk about it?”

He nods and says “I’ve never told anyone, only the caretaker knows but… I trust you”

After a few minutes of silence He tears up a little and says “w-when I w-was 7, my parents left me with my ‘aunt’ and went out on a date and they never came home, turns out they were k-kil… anyway after it happened no one could or wanted to take care of me so I ended up h-here ever since” it turned quiet and he started to cry remembering the past I slowly pulled him into a one armed hug since we were still in the car.

Eventually he stopped and he wiped his eyes and said “s-sorry I didn’t mean t” I shook my head

I said “don’t, I get it I’m not going to laugh at you for letting out what you needed to.”

He gets out and I smiled and said “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow okay”

He smiled and says “okay”

(Next day)

At SC high school, practice

Jason yells “Greg you have to make those plays! Can you be a little more aggressive your the Defensive midfielder of this team, other than Jared your the next best defender to stop the offense before they even get to Jared”

Greg looked down then back up at Jason with determination and said “yes, Coach”

Jason sighed then smiled “good, I know you have It hard to go against the best offense in the league with especially those 3 every practice”

Greg smiled and said “it’s cool, going against Alexander and the Riley twins and the rest of the guys is hard, but they make me better everyday”

They are currently talking before they start Last drill of the day, a scrimmage

Jason blows his whistle “alright, scrimmage time! You know the drill” it’s always the starting defensive players on one team and from midfield to the strikers on the other then the rest of the spots filled by the backups at the time on both teams, sometimes they do other types but this is how Jason mainly does it.

The teams are ready Jason blows his whistle!

–

(Alexander’s POV)

Austin kicks me the ball, I dribbled forward and surprisingly Chris comes straight for me and challenges me for the ball. I make it look like I’m going forward and he follows and I pulled the ball back and went to the right I caught him and went right by him I yelled “keep trying” When I get by him I come face to face with Greg so i look past him because I know it’ll be difficult to get by and see Austin making a run so I lobbed it over the defense and it’s him and Jared 1 on 1. Jared ran forward when Austin saw that he went for a chip shot it looked like it was in but Jared just tipped the ball and it went just over the top of the goal.

I said to myself “damn it, he seems motivated” Jared seemed like he was trying even more.

I yelled “everyone get back!”

–

(After practice)

Me and some of the guys were walking to the parking lot area, some got on their cars and went home I had to wait to get picked up, I see Chris getting in a car probably the caretaker or that older kid he talked about.

I sat down where everyone else was sitting I looked to my right and said “that practice was intense, Jason wasn’t kidding when he said after the break practice would be harder”

Jared who was waiting for Jason said “yeah, especially that scrimmage still can’t believe we lost 2-1, the twins have scary chemistry still can’t believe Austin got me with the no look pass like he just knew Raymond would be there to score”

I said “yeah, but don’t be so down on your self they are at least among the best young strikers in the country, but your insanely good to you know you already have freaking offers from pro clubs” I lightly nudged him the rest of the guys there heard what I said and immediately swarmed Jared.

I smiled when I looked away from them and saw Cora’s car, I grabbed my bag and walked over and got in.

–

(Alexander’s house)

I said “thanks for the ride, I’ll see you later”

Cora kisses me and said “bye” then drives home. I walk to the front door and I see an unfamiliar car I shrugged it off and walked inside. I close the door and turn around and see my Aunt Mia with my mom in the living room I walk over and she sees me she immediately gets up and hugs me tightly and I hug her back.

She lets me go and says “I’m so glad your okay, better than okay actually from what I see. Did you finally tell that girl how you felt?”

I nod and smiled then said “were dating now actually.”

She says “good I’m happy for you, so you ready to get down to business”

“Yes” I said with excitement